In a futile (and I suspect, unsuccessful) attempt to convince the outside world that I do indeed have my finger resolutely on the pulse of modern music, I do try to keep up with a few choice labels. To be honest, it would probably be fairer to say that one or two labels do stick with sending me emails, in the hope that every now and again I might be stirred into action.
One of these labels is Loose Music, who have quite an impressive roster these days but maintain an appealingly homemade feel to their operation. Over Christmas I bought the well-regarded The Duke & The Spirit album Nothing Gold Can Say, but I have to say it hasn’t really worked for me, and has drifted to the pile of albums that I really should give another listen (never a good sign).
Danny & the Champions of the World
Not to be deterred, however, I’ve just today bought the new Danny & the Champions of the World record, Streets of our Time, and am enjoying a much lighter country sound which works very nicely.
Danny is apparently the former front man of Grand Drive, and so has some considerable pedigree already. I don’t really know a whole lot about Grand Drive but I probably need to investigate their catalogue further.
I’m not keen on defining a band’s sound by referring to another band (very lazy) but it’s hard not to talk about this record without thinking Springsteen, the Byrds, Neil Young or Dylan. To be fair, however, the influences go back a lot further too, sounding very old-timey, with banjo to the fore (I do love a banjo, me).
Anyway, I was scratching around YouTube looking for a video to play, but the only video up that refers to the new album was this one. It’s not an official video and not really a video at all, just a series of photographs, by a bloke called Tony-Ray Jones. Now, I’m not going to claim I knew who Tony-Ray Jones was, (a trip here soon sorted that out) but the photographs chosen by YouTuber Victoory (who seems to have a rather a nice line in this sort of video) are gorgeous and fit the feel of the title track from the album very nicely.
Loose Music and Danny and the Champions of the World don’t seem to have much up in the way of freebies or even videos to watch but what they do have is this Spotify playlist which is made up of tracks that obviously inspired the record (sure enough, we have Dylan, Neil Young, the Byrds etc).
The younger, cooler member of the family has been telling me to take advantage of Spotify playlists for a while now, and I am reluctantly forced to agree with the young hopper…
One of these labels is Loose Music, who have quite an impressive roster these days but maintain an appealingly homemade feel to their operation. Over Christmas I bought the well-regarded The Duke & The Spirit album Nothing Gold Can Say, but I have to say it hasn’t really worked for me, and has drifted to the pile of albums that I really should give another listen (never a good sign).
Danny & the Champions of the World
Not to be deterred, however, I’ve just today bought the new Danny & the Champions of the World record, Streets of our Time, and am enjoying a much lighter country sound which works very nicely.
Danny is apparently the former front man of Grand Drive, and so has some considerable pedigree already. I don’t really know a whole lot about Grand Drive but I probably need to investigate their catalogue further.
I’m not keen on defining a band’s sound by referring to another band (very lazy) but it’s hard not to talk about this record without thinking Springsteen, the Byrds, Neil Young or Dylan. To be fair, however, the influences go back a lot further too, sounding very old-timey, with banjo to the fore (I do love a banjo, me).
Anyway, I was scratching around YouTube looking for a video to play, but the only video up that refers to the new album was this one. It’s not an official video and not really a video at all, just a series of photographs, by a bloke called Tony-Ray Jones. Now, I’m not going to claim I knew who Tony-Ray Jones was, (a trip here soon sorted that out) but the photographs chosen by YouTuber Victoory (who seems to have a rather a nice line in this sort of video) are gorgeous and fit the feel of the title track from the album very nicely.
Loose Music and Danny and the Champions of the World don’t seem to have much up in the way of freebies or even videos to watch but what they do have is this Spotify playlist which is made up of tracks that obviously inspired the record (sure enough, we have Dylan, Neil Young, the Byrds etc).
The younger, cooler member of the family has been telling me to take advantage of Spotify playlists for a while now, and I am reluctantly forced to agree with the young hopper…
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